There is an autonomous mobile system designed for a mobile body (such as vehicle) that moves while localizing itself in a space. Such an autonomous mobile system causes the mobile body to move to a destination while referring to a map generated from the data that has been measured by a measuring device(s) such as an internal sensor (a sensor for measuring a state of the mobile body itself) and/or external sensor (a sensor needed for the mobile body to measure a state of surroundings while moving).
This kind of autonomous mobile systems fall into two major types. One type, disclosed in JP-2004-110802-A), causes the mobile body to move autonomously by recognizing landmarks and/or other specific shapes by use of a camera as an external sensor, and generating a map. The other type, disclosed in JP-2008-276348-A, causes the mobile body to move autonomously as follows: using a laser range scanner as an external sensor, the mobile body first matches (superposes) sequentially the shape data of a peripheral object that has been acquired at the current time of day, to (upon) the shape data of the peripheral object that was acquired at an immediately previous point in time at a position different from a current position of the mobile body, then extends the region where the shape data of the peripheral object has been measured, and thus generates a map.